Includes bibliographical references and index.

Acknowledgements -- Introduction: The Encroaching Desert, Jitse H.F. Dijkstra and Mathilde van Dijk -- Hagiography and the Reconstruction of Local Religion in Late Antique Egypt: Memories, Inventions, and Landscapes, David Frankfurter -- Bringing Home the Homeless: Landscape and History in Egyptian Hagiography, Jacques van der Vliet -- Saving History? Egyptian Hagiography in Its Space and Time, Peter van Minnen -- Desert, City, and Countryside in the Early Christian Imagination, Claudia Rapp -- The Uses of the Desert in the Sixth-Century West, Conrad Leyser -- Collecting the Desert in the Carolingian West, Lynda L. Coon -- The Franciscan Hermit: Seeker, Prisoner, Refugee, Bert Roest -- Ex vita patrum formatur vita fratrum: The Appropriation of the Desert Fathers in the Augustinian Monasticism of the Later Middle Ages, Eric L. Saak -- Nikolaus of Flüe († 1487): Physiognomies of a Late Medieval Ascetic, Gabriela Signori -- Disciples of the Deep Desert: Windesheim Biographers and the Imitation of the Desert Fathers, Mathilde van Dijk -- Index of Names.

This volume presents a series of case studies concerning the use and reuse of Egyptian hagiography in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The first three contributions analyze the use of Egyptian hagiography in the context of late antique Egypt and, in particular, examine to what extent these texts can be used as historical sources for the reconstruction of traditional ("pagan") religion. The other contributions illustrate the different contexts in which Egyptian hagiography was reused in the medieval West. The book is an important contribution to the current debate about the usefulness of Egyptian hagiography as a historical source for late antique Egypt and to the study of the reception of the desert fathers in the medieval West. Contributors include: Lynda L. Coon, Mathilde van Dijk, Jitse H.F. Dijkstra, David Frankfurter, Conrad Leyser, Peter van Minnen, Claudia Rapp, Bert Roest, Eric L. Saak, Gabriela Signori, and Jacques van der Vliet.

Description based on print version record.